Last week, I wrote about the hard road travelled by women in trying to attain senior positions in the media, particularly at newspapers. But what, asked some of my female friends, about the sexist content? Coincidentally, a couple of days later, the greatest media panjandrum of the age was asked about the relevance of running the most iconic example of sexism in British newspapers — the daily publication of topless women. In other words, Page 3 in the Sun.

Shares in Virgin Media took off at the speed of Usain Bolt today after it revealed that it was in talks which could lead to a multi-billion-pound takeover by American media mogul John Malone’s Liberty Global.

George Osborne has been outed as a friend of Rupert Murdoch after attending a dinner at the News International boss’s flat in St James’s last week with Boris Johnson, actor Damian Lewis and other “very interesting people”.

Fancy that. Rupert Pennant-Rea is chair of the Times’s independent directors, who embarrassed Rupert Murdoch last week by publically opposing his appointment of John Witherow as the new Times editor to succeed James Harding.

The Times was described some 70 years ago by Left-wing Labour politician and journalist Tom Driberg as “an almost perfect newspaper”. That praise, shortly after the paper had been heavily criticised for championing appeasement, illustrates the deep affection it had generated among the elite it served.

Britons’ insatiable appetite for cookery books has helped Bloomsbury to keep revenues bubbling during Christmas and today the Harry Potter publisher signed a major new deal with the makers of BBC show Masterchef.